


A Hairy Situation

by oodal (softkyun)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Bad Puns, Drabble, Fluff, Hair, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 05:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1254004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softkyun/pseuds/oodal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin usually solves problems pretty easily, but he has one question about Jean he just can't get the answer to... and investigating it presents unexpected results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is about 95% ridiculous 5% what the hell

Armin shifted uncomfortably and tried to take his eyes off of it, but it was almost like there was a magnetic reaction. Everytime he forced his gaze away, his eyes would drift back, and he would stare in wonder for another couple of minutes. Then, the cycle would repeat, with him getting continuously more embarrassed with repetition. 

He didn't know when it had started. He could pinpoint a time, or a location; he just knew that at some point in time, he'd noticed, and now he couldn't stop noticing. He couldn't bring it up to anyone else, because he knew that he'd just get a weird luck, but he had to have an answer. Armin didn't like problems that he didn't solve; he usually didn't have problems like that. But now, here he was, with one very important question and absolutely no inkling of a clue to the answer.

How the hell did Jean's hair grow like that?

Armin had looked at it from multiple angles. He'd tried to come up with multiple solutions, too. The first and most obvious was that Jean was cutting it like that, not that it grew in like that. After all, Armin had never seen anyone's hair like that before, so he supposed it couldn't be natural. He'd been satisfied with that answer for a brief moment in time, and then he'd started to realize something. He didn't room with Jean, sure, but he'd never seen Jean cut it, never heard anyone mention that Jean cut his hair frequently... Actually, he figured that a sort of razor would be needed for the way Jean's hair was styled, and didn't those things make a buzzing sort of sound you could hear from decently far way? Either way, the idea of Jean grooming his hair like that was becoming more and more questionable, so Armin did what he needed to prove (or disprove) the idea.

He investigated.

Armin had fallen into step a little bit behind Jean; he'd done his best to be quiet, to blend in and not look particularly suspicious. When Jean had closed the door to the bathroom, Armin had casually leaned against a wall nearby and pretended to be very interested in a book. He hadn't heard any buzzers going, and when Jean came in, his hair didn't look any different. Armin's own hair was getting a little long, but it seemed like Jean's was just never growing. Somehow, it was impeccable and perfectly styled almost all of the time, and it retained that weird short underlayer.

Because he never saw it happen when Jean went into the bathroom, Armin ruled out the idea of it being how Jean cut his hair. That left the idea that it grew that way, and Armin wasn't entirely sure that was possible. He didn't want to ask outright, though, but how did one find out otherwise? What kind of subtle questions could he ask to get the other to drop him a hint or two? Armin was usually pretty good at coming up with that sort of thing - roundabout ways to what he wanted, good ways to fit puzzles together, piece by piece... He'd done it all. But something about asking Jean and having the other male possibly turn to him with a potentially aggravated, confused, or just terribly puzzled expression was unnerving.

Thus, Armin decided to try a different method.

"Connie... have you ever noticed uhm.. something strange.. about Jean?" Armin asked, embarrassed to even be proposing such a question. Connie blinked, wide-eyed, at Armin and raised a hand to scratch at his short hair.

"Strange? Whaddya mean? Jean's just, well, Jean." Connie answered, sending a curious glance towards Jean, who was across the room fiddling with the sleeve of his jacket, mid-conversation with Marco. That was pretty normal, Connie figured, and Armin would have to agree with him. Did no one else wonder about Jean's hair? Had no one else ever noticed?!?

Embarrassed and self-conscious of his perhaps over-observation now, Armin shook his head and took a step back.

"Nevermind." He mumbled hurriedly, and turned on his heel to leave the room.

In the next few days, no new ideas came to Armin. He didn't know who else to ask; the only one close enough to Jean to maybe know about it was Marco, but Armin didn't really know Marco well... He doubted that Marco would persecute him or be upset if he asked, but what if Marco went back and told Jean that Armin had asked? And why was Armin obsessing over this? He wasn't one hundred percent sure, and he thought he'd gotten over it until today.

In his starting at Jean's hair, he'd noticed something different today. It looked shorter. At some point, Jean had cut his hair, and it was looking, well, cleaner. Better. It was a sign to the fact that Jean was cutting it, but Armin hadn't heard it (not that he'd been lingering outside the bathroom when Jean was or anything... well, just a few times. Or a lot of times). He knew he would have had to hear the buzzer, because the little motor-powered tools (which were intriguingly similar to their maneuvering devices, in some ways), were fairly loud. 

Either way, Armin decided today was the day. Today would be the day he just asked Jean straight out, because Armin was going to go crazy if he didn't find out. Just as he went to approach Jean, however, the other male stood up and went over to Marco, leaning in to whisper something to him. Armin paused, and tried not to feel frustrated. The two were leaving the room; Armin would just wait for Jean to come back and then ask him. There was no rush. Well, there was, but Armin could be patient.

Fifteen minutes later, and they hadn't come back. Armin was so tense that his jaw hurt, and he just decided to get up and go. Maybe they were in their room - he would just have to find them. With a deep exhale, Armin stood and left the room in the direction they had. He stood in front of Jean's doorway and wondered if Marco was still there, and so he pressed his ear against the doorway. Inside, he could hear the low murmur of voices, but that was all. He strained to hear a little better, but then he suddenly could hear better; Marco and Jean were getting louder. Were they arguing? 

Armin knew eavesdropping was bad. He knew it to the very core of his being, knew the sideways look that Mikasa would give him if he ever confessed. But... he needed to know. He had to know about the hair.


	2. Chapter 2

Inside the room, Jean crossed his arms angrily and set his best stare on Marco, who was looking sheepishly back at him.

"You cut it too short!" Jean moaned, exasperated, and Marco frowned softly back at him. 

"I cut it to the same length I always do." He responded, stepping forward and carding his fingers through Jean's hair, touching the shorter part underneath, making sure it was even. It felt the same as it always did beneath his hands; soft, like a fuzzy blanket or carpet, and it looked like the length was all the same.

"I'm serious, I think it's the same." Marco reassured him gently, and Jean groaned.

"It doesn't look good at all!" The shorter of the two complained, and Marco's eyebrows raised in surprise. 

"Yes it does!" His tone was quick to refute it, trying to soothe over Jean before he knew what was coming. If there was one thing in the entire world that Jean was over-sensitive about, vain about - anything about - it was his hair. And if he thought that Marco had messed it up, Marco was afraid of what was going to come next.

"I can't believe you did this to me." Marco had to resist rolling his eyes at the dramatic turn of events. Jean and his hair were a stupid pair, sometimes. People didn't expect it out of him, but Marco had come to learn just how protective he was over his hair. It was a pretty high-maintenance style, too, mostly because Jean hated letting it grow out... and he only let Marco do it with scissors. Cutting short hair with scissors and comb was difficult, but Marco had learned to be a hair stylist. Either way, though, Jean was unhappy with his hair, and that spelled a lot of trouble. He wondered what it might cause for everyone else if Jean continued to be this angry; who knew what kind of thing he'd say to Eren later on if his attitude continued?

"I didn't mean to upset you, Jean." Refusing that he'd made a mistake cutting Jean's hair (which he hadn't) was no longer an option; Marco had to soothe Jean, and do it quickly. He'd gotten into a few hair-y situations with Jean before... and he was pretty sure he knew exactly how to fix the problem. Well, a general idea of how to fix it, at least.

"On the contrary, Jean," Marco began, and had to keep a smile from spreading too widely across his face,

"I think your haircut makes you look even more handsome than usual," Marco continued to run his hands through the other male's hair, and he tried not to laugh when he felt Jean freeze beneath him. 

"You're just saying that," Jean snapped back, letting out a long, huffy sort of sound that at least let Marco know that he was cooling down a little bit. Sassy still... well, yes. But Jean at least wasn't about to blow his top and go terrorize everyone else outside of the room.

"I would never 'just say that', Jean. You know that." He told him again, and liked the way that the tips of Jean's ears flushed, the way that he glanced down towards the ground and not back up towards Marco.

"In fact, I think we have some time. Everyone's still at dinner. No one is outside of the room," Marco added, and he could see the widening in Jean's eyes that signified that he knew exactly where he was going, the little shiver down his spine that meant that he was oh-so-aware of what might come next. Like a balloon that had deflated of all of its hot air, Marco could see the anger seeping out of Jean, and Jean finally looked back up towards him, and his arms finally un-crossed.

"We do have some time ---" Jean began, and before he could finished, Marco leaned down to kiss him and nudged him backwards towards the wall with ease.

\---

Outside of the room, Armin tried to get his feet to move. He tried to convince himself to take a step away from the door, and he couldn't. He'd heard it all. Hell, he had heard all of it. Who knew? Who knew? Armin's mind burned with the images it created, and finally, he managed to turn and flee the door.

That was the last time Armin would ever, ever, ever investigate one Jean Kirstein, and Marco would wonder about the curious looks from the short blonde for days to come.


End file.
